Patrick looks just exactly how he looked before Kat left. He still has curly hair and a pretty smile and a look in his eyes that says he doesn't know what Kat is going to say, but he knows he's going to like it. He still wears those annoying tank tops, and leans against things.
Kat thinks about giving him an ultimatum -- take me to your house, introduce me to your father, give me something more than what you were doing last year and why you have a funny accent, make me --
Make me have missed you.
But she doesn't miss him and she didn't miss him when she was gone. She felt... kind of free. And now she feels kind of trapped again.
She looks down at their hands, their fingers twined together, and then back up at his face.
"So," he says to her.
"So," she says back, and leans forward to kiss him. Her stomach sinks a little when he pulls back.
"Kat... I think you're a great girl."
"Patrick..." It's like their sentences are more full of the things they aren't saying to each other than the things they are. She wonders if he missed her. She doubts it. But maybe he did, maybe she's underestimating him -- or overestimating him. Is he self-aware enough to realize what's going on? She misses the way it was when they first met, when she was angry all the time.
She's still angry. Going away to college hasn't made her less angry. But now she's angry about real things, about feminism and gender roles and racism and capitalism and the patriarchy. Not that she wasn't angry about all that before -- but before she was also angry about, like, her life. And Joey. And her mother.
And now she is totally over all that stuff, so it's not like she has to act angry.
"I'm not stupid, Kat." He shakes his head and squeezes her hand. "It was fun, though, wasn't it?"
"Yeah -- but --" Suddenly she feels desperate to hold on to him, like once they break up, she'll be -- she doesn't even know. Lost, somehow.
"Aw, come on, girlie," he says, and leans forward and kisses her, and she kisses him back, but her toes don't tingle anymore.
**
2.
Kat calls from the pay phone in the hallway. She waits until after midnight, after curfew, and sneaks out. No one is around. She has a phone card especially for this, and she dials his number from memory. It's only, like, nine o'clock there anyway.
"Patrick?" she says when he picks up. She keeps her voice down.
"Kat? Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, what, I can't call my boyfriend?"
"Isn't it after curfew in the dorm?"
"So?" She stretches the cord as far as it will go and leans against the wall, presses her head against a flyer for the GLBT movie night.
"So nothing," he says, and she can almost see him shrug and grin. "So what's going on there? Any hot naked all girl pillow fights?"
"None that I'd tell you about," she replies, and closes her eyes.
Okay, she'll do it tomorrow instead. Definitely tomorrow, though. She can't keep putting it off, because eventually she'll have to go home and see him, and she doesn't know if she can do it in person.
"Aw, that really hurts," he says. "If you can't tell me, who can you tell? Is there naughty touching? You can tell me about that, surely?"
"No I can't," she mouths to the wall. To Patrick she says, "Like I would, you pervert."
**
3.
As they walk down the jetway, Tess squeezes her hand. Kat squeezes back, and braces herself for the blast of hot air as they step into the airport.
"It'll be fine," Tess says confidently. "Just relax. My parents loved you, didn't they?"
"I know, I know," Kat sighs. They've had this conversation at least three times. "It's just that I haven't been home since I started college, and now... I just think my dad is going to go crazy. This is not the Christmas gift he's hoping for, I'm pretty sure."
Tess puts her face into Kat's neck, and they almost fall over. Kat giggles, and Tess says, "Remind him that this way you can't get pregnant and have little babies with Australian accents."
Kat laughs out loud and says, "So not funny!" and pushes Tess away, and then -- and then Patrick is standing in front of her.
"Heya, Kat," he says. Tess's face is still in her neck, Tess's patchouli scent -- weird when they first met, but now comforting, and kind of sexy -- is surrounding her, Tess's hands are still on her.
Patrick's eyes are accusing.
"Patrick!" Kat pushes Tess away. "Hi. I -- uh -- what are you doing here?"
"Picking you up from the airport. Thinking maybe we could talk. Thinking maybe -- obviously I was wrong." Patrick jingles his keys and Tess finally gets it, and gasps a little.
"Patrick..." Kat trails off. What is she supposed to say? She never promised him anything. They sort of broke up before she went off to school, even though neither of them actually said anything. Kat hadn't wanted to say anything, anyway.
She still doesn't.
"Okay, just pretend I am not here," says Tess.
"No problem." Patrick doesn't even look at her, just keeps his eyes on Kat. Kat knows that tone, that look, the way he presses his lips together, the way his jaw ticks. The way he looks like he's gonna punch someone in the face -- but he won't, he'll just keep it all inside, which is why she didn't want to keep dating him once she went off to college anyway, because how could she? They couldn't even have a conversation on the phone. Once they graduated from Padua, they didn't even have anything in common anymore.
"I never promised you anything," she says angrily. "And I don't want to do this here."
"I bet you don't even want to do this at all," he replies grimly. In another world, he'd be cracking jokes and making sexual innuendoes, and if Tess was a different person, Kat might even think it would be kind of sexy to have a threesome and be the sort of liberated bisexual person who could have sex with anyone and not become emotionally involved or feel embarrassed.
But it's this world and Tess is a lesbian and Kat is confused and Patrick is angry, and it's all Kat can do to follow him out of the airport and not scream, "You didn't stop me!" because that's a total cop-out anyway. She didn't stop herself. She didn't want to. Everyone expected her and Patrick to be together forever, like a fairy tale, but this was real life, and she wasn't going to do what people expected just so they'd like her.
So whatever, Patrick Verona, and your unspoken expectations -- screw you.
**
4.
Kat is totally surprised when her father lets Patrick drive her to the airport. He sighs and kisses her on the cheek and glares at Patrick.
"Yeah, yeah," Patrick says to him, "you know every cop in town, and you've got a shovel. I've heard it all before."
"Well -- good!" says dad, and glares some more. Kat's pretty sure he's going to cry once she's gone. At least Bianca is there for him to fuss over. Daddy's pretty princess and her perfect, dorky, easily intimidated boyfriend. Daddy doesn't even care that Cameron's a senior, since Cameron obviously has no idea what to do with any of Bianca's girl parts.
They're quiet on the drive to SeaTac; Patrick lets her pick the music and doesn't even cringe when she puts in Ani and sings along, and she pretends that the lyrics aren't particularly apt -- but she fast-forwards through "Superhero" because Patrick really is a phone booth that she somehow stumbled into. She's like everyone else now, going to college across the country and leaving her high school boyfriend behind, debating whether maybe it's worth it to give up her East Coast school to stay with him.
It's totally not.
That kind of feels like a betrayal.
"Let's not even say anything," he suggests, and she raises her eyebrows.
"We're sitting on uncomfortable airport chairs, watching these people trudge by like they don't have any idea that their lives are --"
"Meaningless?"
She glares at him, but he smiles at her and she has to smile back.
"Look, Kat..." He stares at the floor, then looks into her eyes.
"Your eyes are so pretty," she says, and puts her hand to his face.
"You told me that once before."
"I've told you that a million times. It's always true." She smiles at him again, but he doesn't grin back, and that worries her. She lets her fingers trace over his lips. The calluses on her fingertips from the guitar he gave her blunt the feeling of his skin against hers.
He leans away from her touch. "Kat, I think you need to make a fresh start at college. Be the person you always wanted to be. Sarah Lawrence is your dream school -- I don't want to hold you back."
"Are you breaking up with me?" She says it louder than she meant to, and one of the women trudging by, lost in her own consumerism, is jolted into recognition of the moment -- but Kat can't even appreciate that, because Patrick is breaking up with her. "In an airport!"
"Kat, I'm trying to do what's best for you."
"Only I know what's best for me. Who are you, my father? What makes you think you can decide this for me?" She can't look away from him, but she can't stand to look at him. She cannot cry in an airport about a boy. That would just be too tragic.
He stares back at her and doesn't answer. Finally she slings her knapsack over her shoulder and stands up.
"I need to check in. Check my bags. Leave." She crosses her arms over her chest. "I guess I won't be seeing you."
He stands up too, and holds out a small package, all wrapped up, with a little bow. She hasn't seen it before -- he's been hiding it. Like he's been hiding his stupid little plan to break up with her before she leaves. How long? This is the second time Patrick's done something like this, the second -- she can't --
"Take it," he says, and pushes the package at her, and lets it drop. She catches it, and it jingles a little. "You're gonna knock them all out, girlie." He brushes his hand against her face and then walks away. She watches him go, his big dumb combat boots clumping on the floor.
She doesn't open his package until she's on the airplane. It's a tambourine.
**
5.
"Okay, so tell me everything about college," says Biana, throwing herself onto Kat's bed. She's home from school and off for Thanksgiving and Kat totally missed her.
"College is just like high school, but everyone's a lesbian," says Kat. She tosses Bianca a Sarah Lawrence sweatshirt. "What's up with you and Cameron."
Bianca holds the sweatshirt to her chest and rolls over, stares at the ceiling and sighs. "We are so in love."
Kat grins.
"Tell me," continues Bianca, rolling over again so that she's on her stomach, "all about Patrick."
"Nothing to tell," says Kat. She lifts a shoulder and lets it drop. "We decided to put our --" Air quotes. "-- relationship on hold until, you know, we could figure things out."
"What's to figure out?" demands Bianca. "You like him! He likes you! There is liking going on, Kat. Don't throw it away just because Dad wants you guys to, like, get married."
"What Dad wants is for me to be a virgin forever and still somehow give him grandchildren." Bianca giggles at that, and that makes Kat smile. "But liking isn't always enough, Bianca."
"You know, Kat, you don't have to be such a -- Cassandra all the time."
"Cassandra only said things that came true."
Bianca stares disapprovingly at her. "You know what I mean. You can let yourself be happy."
"I'm happy," says Kat defensively. "I'm totally happy."
"Oh yeah? I don't believe you."
"You don't have to." Kat brings her legs up and curls them underneath her butt. "Anyway, where did you learn about Cassandra?"
"I do pay attention in class sometimes, thank you!" Bianca flicks Kat's leg with a long, perfectly manicured fingernail.
"I'm so sure." Kat rolls her eyes and flicks her back. "And anyway, I didn't say that we were breaking up. We're just on hold. I'm going to see him tonight, and... we'll see."
"Uh-huh." Kat shifts under Bianca's appraising look.
"Seriously, Bianca. I still like him. I just... don't expect anything from him."
"I bet he's going to ask you to marry him."
"I bet you're completely unhinged!"
Bianca's hand comes up and she toys with mom's pearls, wrapped around her throat and glowing.
"You know I'm right," she says dreamily. "You can have little Australian babies."
"I'm not having anyone's babies," says Kat firmly. "We're just going to see what happens."
"Use a condom!" says Bianca before she hops up off the bed and darts out the door, sticking her tongue out at Kat before she closes it.
Kat brings her legs up to her chest and hugs them tightly. Her stomach is turning over and over at the prospect of seeing Patrick again after two months apart -- almost three. She's made herself a deal: if his kisses still make her toes tingle and his eyes are still beautiful, she won't break up with him. If he's wearing Drakkar Noir or Cool Water, or if he doesn't make some crack about her turning into a lesbian and leer at her, she will.
She never thought she'd be the kind of girl who liked it when a guy leered at her, but when Patrick did it, it kind of felt like... something. Love, maybe.